Chapter Seventeen: The Island of Departing Winds

  Bai Cangdong once again refused to become Hong Lian's knight, and Hong Lian's face suddenly became somewhat stiff.

  "Well, you're on your own then." Lady Honglian stood up and was about to leave.

  "Madam, please don't be angry, I have a few questions to ask you." Bai Cangdong said with a serious expression.

  Honglian hesitated for a moment and stopped to look at Bai Cangdong.

  "May I ask when will you be promoted to Earl?" asked Bai Cangdong calmly.

  "Is it easy to become a baron? I can count the number of barons who have come out of Jirong City with one hand. Although I am confident that I will become a baron, I must be fully prepared. It's unlikely within ten years, maybe possible within twenty years, and at most not more than thirty years. My wife will definitely become a baroness." Red Lotus looked at Bai Canghai in confusion, wondering why he was asking these questions.

  Bai Cangdong did not respond to her doubts and continued to ask: "When will the madam be able to advance to the rank of marquis again?"

  "The Doulun City has never produced a marquis, and although Honglian is confident, she doesn't dare say that she will definitely become a marquis." Madame Honglian looked at Bai Canghai and said: "What do you mean by asking these questions?"

  "Milady, my aim is not just an earl." Bai Cangdong said lightly.

  Lady Honglian didn't know whether she was laughing from extreme anger or genuinely amused by Bai Canghai's teasing, her laughter causing the flowers to tremble: "Even the Duke looks down on him, no wonder he refused to become my knight, what a proud and idealistic person."

  "That's my goal, and it's also my ideal. I won't give up, so please forgive me, madam. I have no way of becoming your knight. However, if you have any orders, madam, I will definitely do my best to carry them out." said Bai Cangdong.

  "Having ambition is a good thing, but do you know why the vast majority of people can't even become an earl or a viscount for their entire lives?" said Lady Honglian.

  "The power gap between each rank is enormous, and skipping ranks to challenge is too difficult, which is why the rank is so hard to obtain." said Bai Cangdong.

  "You're only half right, the gap in strength between each rank is indeed huge, and it takes a lot of things to bridge that gap, such as equipment, help from friends of the same level, and most importantly... martial skills."

  "Martial arts?" Bai Cangdong looked at Hong Lian with some confusion, he knew that martial arts were important, but not to the point where they could affect his promotion to nobility.

  "Not bad, do you know where martial arts come from?" asked Lady Honglian.

  "Huh!" Bai Cangdong really didn't know where his martial skills came from.

  "Most people don't know that martial skills and martial arts come from the Undead Tribe, but they are different. Martial arts originated from the Undead Tribe itself, while martial skills came from the altar of the Undead Tribe. Shattering the Eternal Crystal has a chance to obtain martial skills, but it's not guaranteed. You can imagine how rare martial skills are. Fortunately, many martial skills can be learned on one's own and aren't like titles that only one person can possess. The martial skills we learn now were obtained by our predecessors who shattered the Eternal Crystal."

  "The Art of Longevity is also a type of martial skill, and it's the most important one. With the Art of Longevity, you can drive the growth of your Life Plate; otherwise, the power of the Life Plate remains constant, while the power of other martial skills relies on the Life Plate. If your Life Plate is strong enough and your martial skills are powerful enough, killing a non-dying clan member across levels won't be as difficult as imagined. Unfortunately, high-level martial skills are hard to come by, and the higher the level, the rarer they become. At the Baron rank, you have many martial skills to choose from, but at the Viscount rank, the number of available martial skills decreases a hundredfold or even a thousandfold. By the time you reach the Earl rank, do you know how many Earl-level martial skills Count Blade owns?"

  Bai Cangdong continued shaking his head while looking at Hong Lian with great curiosity, waiting for her answer.

  "It's been so many years since my brother became an earl, and yet he still only knows one earl-level martial skill, which is just a basic bronze-level skill. Do you think that with this one bronze-level skill, he can defeat a marquis-level undead? " Lady Honglian looked at Bai Canghai: "This is still the case when someone has connections, but for someone like you who is poor and white, it will be even more difficult. Are you still confident in your goals?"

  Bai Cangdong listened to what Hong Lian said, not only was he not intimidated, but he was also somewhat surprised. The martial skill was so difficult to obtain, yet his sword sheath could absorb the martial attire and transform it into a martial skill. Judging from the performance of the sword sheath in the previous two instances, whatever level of martial attire it absorbed, it would be able to transform into a martial skill of the same level. Wasn't this saying that he wouldn't have to worry about martial skills anymore? After all, obtaining martial attire was much easier than obtaining martial skills.

  He was born for so long and had only seen the Undying Altar once, but that altar hadn't even left behind a single martial skill. It was really too difficult to obtain a martial skill in this way.

  Bai Cangdong didn't seem intimidated, instead he looked delighted. Red Lotus Lady said with a strange tone: "I don't know if you're crazy or stupid, never mind, since you have such an ambition, I won't force you to be my knight. Wait until you encounter many setbacks later, and you'll naturally understand how naive your current thoughts are."

  "Thank you for your understanding, madam."

  "You don't want to be my knight, but you can still help me with that matter. Are you willing to help me?" said the lady Honglian with a smile.

  "Of course, I will obey." Bai Cangdong still hoped that Hong Lian would save him, so he naturally couldn't refuse.

  "All right, madam can rest assured now. You take a good rest, I won't disturb you anymore." Honglian got up and was about to leave.

  "Madam..." Bai Cangdong was still waiting for Hong Lian to tell him how to break the crisis of "Wu Li Zhi", but unexpectedly, Hong Lian didn't say anything and wanted to leave.

  Honglian saw Bai Cangdong's anxious face and couldn't help but chuckle: "You're such a person, sometimes you're very brave, like a madman who doesn't care about his life, and sometimes you're so timid and afraid of death."

  "Don't worry, my husband's brother is not a ruthless person. Didn't he promise to give you an elixir of longevity? That elixir is actually the method of nourishing life and returning to one's origin. After using the 'Five Departures Finger', you only need to cultivate that method of longevity, and within ten days or half a month, you will recover as before. At most, it won't take more than a month."

  After thinking for a moment, Red Lotus Madame took out an exquisite small jade bottle and placed it on the bedside: "Since you promised to do something for me, I also can't have nothing to show for it. This bottle contains a Jade Essence Pill, which can supplement your spiritual energy. If you encounter any danger after using the North Departure Finger, just take the pill and you will immediately recover as before. However, this pill is precious, so if there's no danger, it's better for you to cultivate that method of longevity slowly and recover gradually. Don't waste the Jade Essence Pill."

  "Thank you, madam." Bai Cangdong carefully put away the Jade Essence Pill.

  When Bai Changdong raised his head again, he found that Hong Lianfu had quietly left without knowing when. He didn't have any feeling at all.

  "The viscount is indeed much stronger than the baron. In the carriage, I don't know how many points of true strength Madam Honglian used!" Bai Cangdong was secretly shocked. If Madam Honglian really wanted to kill him, she could quietly and soundlessly stab him in the back, and he probably wouldn't even know how he died.

  But thinking that Honglian Furen actually wanted him to impersonate the Masked Baron, Bai Cangdong's mouth corners involuntarily curled up, revealing a hint of an eerie smile.

  The next morning, Bai Cangdong and his four companions were summoned to the courtyard by the Silver Armor Knights to examine their cultivation of the "Five Departure Fingers".

  The result was very satisfactory to the Silver Armor Knights, all five of whom had successfully cultivated their skills. The only difference was in their experience and mastery, but these were not what the Silver Armor Knights needed. As long as the five of them could unleash the "Five Departed Fingers" technique, concentrate their powers on Li Xiangfei, and slay that Viscount-level undead creature, it would be enough.

  "This is the elixir of immortality that I promised you, remember it well in your hearts now, and it will be useful later." The Silver Armor Knight said, holding up a book on the elixir of immortality in front of the five people.

  Bai Cang and others did not say anything, together they flipped through that longevity technique book, and firmly remembered it in their hearts.

  "This time's trip to Lifu Island will be troubling the five of you." On the huge three-masted ship, Li Xiangfei stood at the bow, her white gauze skirt and black long hair fluttering in the wind.

  "Miss Xiang Fei is too polite, this is what we should do." Li Xi Feng said with a spring breeze on his face.

  The Silver Knight said indifferently, "Lifeng Island is a place carefully selected by the Earl. There are only about a hundred or so baron-level undead on the island, and one viscount-level undead. Moreover, those undead are all solitary and rarely gather together. You should be able to handle it easily. In order to ensure Miss Xiangfei's promotion to viscount, I cannot take action. Everything must be resolved by you yourselves."

  "Sir Silver Knight, I don't know what kind of undead is on that island, what are its characteristics and weaknesses?" asked Bai Cangdong.

  The silver-armored knight nodded and said, "That is a type of undead creature called the Wind Spirit. It's not very fast, and its body is quite fragile. The only troublesome thing about it is that the Wind Spirit can self-heal in the wind, and on this island, there will be gusts of wind known as ' Departed Winds'. In those Departed Winds, the Wind Spirits are extremely difficult to kill. You must wait until the Departed Winds stop before you can hunt them down."

  "The wind on the island comes from nowhere and disappears into nothingness, never leaking a single thread outside. Every day for eleven hours, the wind will caress every corner of the Wind Island. So you must kill that Viscount-level wind spirit within the one hour when the wind stops; otherwise, once the wind starts again, you'll have no more chances."

  The boat sailed for more than two days, and everyone saw a small black island appearing on the sea surface from afar. Although there was still some distance away, they could already hear a strange humming sound coming from the island, as if it were devils crying in the dark.